


there is no right way

by katplanet



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta/Omega, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasy Doctor Visits, Hypothetical pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Mating Bites, Nausea/Illness, Pheromones, Sexy Lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:14:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29602299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katplanet/pseuds/katplanet
Summary: Dave did a lot of reading at an impressionable age, maybe built up some expectations about the kind of bouquet that was going to hit his nose when he fell in love. But Klaus doesn’t smell like spices, or flowers, or anything as esoteric ashome.Klaus smells like a person. A warm skin smell, rich and deep, buried in the earth of his body. It's strongest where Klaus sweats, all his vulnerable dips and valleys, and when Dave tucks his nose behind Klaus's ear and inhales he can actually feel his thoughts go fuzzy for a second, like a radio between stations.There’s nothing to compare it to. Nothing compares.“Love you,” Dave says into Klaus’s throat.Klaus nudges at Dave with his heel. “Yeah, do something about it.”
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 18
Kudos: 40
Collections: EnKlave Fest 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written for the enklave fest 2021 prompt: omegaverse pair bonding
> 
> the enklave technically made this request months ago and who would i be to deny them!!

Their bed smells like them. Dave doesn’t always notice, at least not consciously, but he’s noticing now. Groggy, eyes still shut, hot under the covers. Klaus nestled up against his back with an arm flung around his waist.

“I’m waking you up on purpose,” Klaus is saying into the back of Dave’s head. “I have an agenda. I’m unrepentant.”

Dave yawns, which just means he smells their bed more. Smells Klaus, tucked up next to him. “S’working.”

“Are you scheduled today?”

“Thursday?”

“Wednesday.”

Dave rolls onto his back. Klaus settles into the crook of his arm, fingers tracing over his chest. “I’m all yours.”

“Oh, perfect.”

“What were you gonna do if I had a shift?”

“Follow you into the shower, probably.”

Dave opens his eyes just a crack, enough to take in Klaus's face hovering above him. He's flushed and lovely, his hair flat to his head on one side, a bird's nest on the other. One deep pillow crease on his cheek.

"Morning, darlin'," Dave says, and Klaus smiles as he ducks down for a kiss.

That kiss turns into another kiss. Then another one, then another, then Klaus is tugging Dave on top of him, his legs spread so Dave can fit between them. And the lingering scent of both of them in their sheets is sweet for the story it tells, but Dave can smell Klaus up close like this, and that’s another thing entirely.

Dave did a lot of reading at an impressionable age, maybe built up some expectations about the kind of bouquet that was going to hit his nose when he fell in love. But Klaus doesn’t smell like spices, or flowers, or anything as esoteric as  _ home. _ Klaus smells like a person. A warm skin smell, rich and deep, buried in the earth of his body. It's strongest where Klaus sweats, all his vulnerable dips and valleys, and when Dave tucks his nose behind Klaus's ear and inhales he can actually feel his thoughts go fuzzy for a second, like a radio between stations.

There’s nothing to compare it to. Nothing compares.

“Love you,” Dave says into Klaus’s throat.

Klaus nudges at Dave with his heel. “Yeah, do something about it.”

Dave settles his weight down over Klaus. Pushes into him, easy with how slick he already is. They’re so easy for each other.

Klaus slips his fingers into Dave's hair, and Dave fucks him with slow rolls of his hips, guides him into it. There are times for them to get rough and needy, but right now Dave wants to cover Klaus with his body, press up against every warm sleepy inch of him. He wants to wring pleasure out of both of them until they're limp, cocooned in their bed, their blended scents. He wants to make Klaus ache with it.

So he keeps it gentle, steady, and Klaus must still be tired, because he doesn't grumble about it at all. He just gets his hands on Dave's back and drags his fingernails around, the perfect amount of pressure to make Dave shiver. He sighs in Dave's ear. Hums whenever something works for him, which is flatteringly often.

"You want it like this?" Dave asks him, his voice coming out gravelly with leftover sleep.

Klaus shuffles his thighs around Dave's hips. "Yeah," he says, eventually. "Yeah, feels good."

Dave kisses him, rocks into him a little sharper. He says, "Yeah," right back, which is not very creative of him, but it's hard to come up with something fancy to say when Klaus is looking the way he does.

Klaus leans up for one more kiss, and then he tugs Dave down by the hair, steers his head around so they can scent each other. The surreal spiral of it, a feedback loop straight through the base part of Dave's brain. He keeps thinking it'll lose its luster, it has to, nothing can feel so good forever, and then, every single time, it feels like this. Rushing into and out of him, a charge in a circuit. The truth of Klaus's feelings for him, spelled out by his body.

"Yeah," Klaus mumbles into the arch of Dave's shoulder, because they're apparently down to one word between them. "Harder, baby."

Dave fucks him harder but not faster, and Klaus moans, sprawls his legs as wide as they'll go. He tries to rock back a few times before he gives up and lets Dave keep his pace, and that's a heady feeling - Klaus, relaxed and spread out like a feast, trusting Dave to give him what he wants.

Klaus gasps into Dave's collarbone, goes snug around Dave moving inside him, and Dave buries his nose straight into the delicate skin under Klaus's ear, the hollow behind his jawbone, just in time to breathe him in. Rich and intoxicating, thick, a physical thing Dave could trail his fingers through, swallow down, devour with every single one of his senses and always stay hungry for.

He opens his mouth, tongues a kiss into the softness under Klaus's jawline, and Klaus arches and whines out loud, which is.

Different.

Dave pulls back. Lifts himself up onto his elbows so he can see Klaus underneath him, and Klaus is - Klaus is  _ steamrolled. _ His eyes have gone all wet, pupils blown out. Lips bitten pink. He's gasping for breath like Dave just pulled him out of the deep end of a pool. 

"You stopped," Klaus says, and the words slur a little, tripping over each other in the rush out of his mouth.

"Was that," Dave says. Stops, swallows. "Your neck. Was that okay?"

"Yeah," Klaus says, gunshot quick, and he tips his jaw up and back. "God, baby, it feels so good, I don't know, I - please don't stop."

"It feels good?"

“Really good.”

Dave reaches up, runs his fingertips along the arch of Klaus’s throat. They’ve been together long enough for Dave to learn every inch of Klaus, and his neck is just his neck. Klaus likes it kissed, but not as much as he likes his lips kissed, or his thighs. Sometimes he wants Dave to cup a hand around it, hold him by it. It smells good, it’s convenient for Dave to nuzzle into while they fuck, it gets ticklish when Dave’s too light with it. That’s all.

Maybe if he’d been with other omegas before Klaus, Dave would find that ambivalence strange. But he hadn’t, and what feels strange is all this flush, this trembling, just from Dave’s mouth against his throat, mapping it with kisses, like he’s teasing out the right spot to-

Klaus groans, and his eyes flutter shut. “I don’t know what just went through your head,” he says, “but you had better fucking do it right now, I swear to god.”

Dave rolls his hips, and Klaus's whole body rocks with it. “Can I,” Dave says. He smooths the long line of Klaus’s neck with his thumb. “With - with teeth, if you want.”

“Holy shit,” Klaus breathes, and he bears down around Dave, tenses all through himself, “yes, yes, oh my god-“

Dave drops off his elbows and gets his mouth on Klaus’s throat again, kisses into it. And it’s not as if he hasn’t done this for Klaus before on his thighs, his belly, even his collarbone, but he cups his hand around Klaus’s jaw and holds him still and gently, gently nips, the barest brush of teeth, and Klaus-

Klaus comes. Just like that, goes tight and shaky and makes a sound like he’s even more surprised than Dave is. He grabs Dave’s hair in his fist and holds his head where it is, so Dave keeps going, fucks him and nibbles at his soft skin, and Klaus lets out a string of wounded little noises and rides it out.

“Don’t stop,” Klaus murmurs, even after his legs have gone slack, slipped off Dave’s hips and onto the mattress. “C’mon.” 

Dave pulls back enough to look at Klaus’s throat, the red mark blooming up. Klaus rolls his head back so Dave can see, and Dave fucks him harder for it, snaps into him with an old, old rhythm. Wraps Klaus up in his arms and holds him close, safe against his chest, comes inside him with his nose pressed to the sweat along his hairline. Stays buried in him all through it and for as long as he can stand it after, until everything tips into too much and he has to pull away.

"Fuck," Klaus mumbles in Dave's ear. "Oh my god."

Getting enough air for Dave's pounding heart means breathing Klaus in, the tang of salt on his skin, the lazy dregs of his pleasure. He nestles down over Klaus, and Klaus wraps his arms tight around his waist, tugs him in.

They lie like that, comfortable and a little sticky, until Dave's higher functions start to kick back in.

“Shit,” he says, pushing up on an elbow. “I bit you.”

“Barely,” Klaus says, but he looks about as stunned as Dave feels.

“I didn’t - I didn’t know that was your thing.”

“It isn't.”

“Did you not-"

"No," Klaus says, quick, "no, I mean, it hasn't been, historically. I don't know what happened."

"Was it okay?"

"It was amazing," Klaus says, and Dave rarely ever sees him blush, but his cheeks are a little pinker than they usually get in the afterglow. "Yeah, no, that was - wow. It was okay for you?"

Dave nods, and he hadn't even realized Klaus was tense until he relaxes underneath him, a smile creeping smug onto his face.

"Add that to the rotation, then," Klaus says. "Yeah?"

Dave leans back down and kisses Klaus once on the lips, and then he ducks in even further and kisses the little mark left over on Klaus's throat. It's tiny, faint, but Klaus shivers and pulls Dave closer, so Dave kisses it again.

"Shower with me?" Klaus asks him, trailing fingertips along his spine.

They usually only shower together for one of two reasons, and Wednesdays aren't the days they do curl treatments. "Sure," Dave says, and he reaches down with one hand, squeezes Klaus's thigh. "You don't need a minute?"

"Nah," Klaus says, and he wiggles his hips up into the weight of Dave's body. "Got all this momentum, might as well keep rolling."

"That really did it for you, huh?"

"New territory, baby. I wanna go exploring."

Klaus nudges Dave's shoulder, and Dave hoists himself up onto his knees, gives Klaus room to sit up. His cheeks are still rosy, his lips red from kisses. He stretches, arches his spine, wrinkles his nose when something pops.

"My back," Klaus says, eyes narrowed over his shoulder at it like it's cracking out of spite. "Jesus, I'm getting old."

"We're having marathon morning sex," Dave says. "You're not old."

Klaus grins at him. "Marathon, huh?"

"I don't write checks I can't cash."

Klaus swings his miles of legs over the edge of the bed and stands up, and Dave stays behind for a moment to look at him. The long smooth lines of his body, the muscles and bits of softness he's been building up with no small amount of effort. He peeks through his hair at Dave, and Dave lets himself get caught staring, because it makes Klaus smile, unselfconscious and pleased.

And then all the color drains out of his face, and he sways on his feet.

"Whoa," Dave says, "easy, sweetheart."

Klaus lets out a tiny noise and stumbles off in the direction of their bathroom. Makes it through the door and collapses in front of the toilet, sticks his face in the bowl and sits there, motionless except for his heavy breathing.

Dave gives him a second, then gets up and scoops the quilt off the foot of the bed. He brings it into the bathroom with him and crouches down next to Klaus with it, folds half of it over his bare shoulders. Klaus shifts up on his calves just enough for Dave to tuck the other half under him, between his thighs and the cold tile.

“Hey,” Dave says. "Rain check on the shower?"

Klaus shakes his head once, the motion as small as he can make it.

“Back?”

Klaus nods, so Dave sits down next to him and rubs his back through the blanket, the slow up-and-down along his spine that used to help him back when they found themselves here more regularly. He keeps rubbing, helps Klaus hold his hair out of his face while he does what he’s got to do. Klaus groans afterwards and leans into Dave’s chest, and Dave holds him like that, lets him rest his forehead on his collarbone.

“Mm,” Klaus says, eventually. “Sexy.”

“Feel better?”

“Not really.”

“Darn,” Dave says. He wraps an arm low around Klaus’s back, and Klaus sags into it. “You think you ate something?”

“No, I feel - god, I feel dizzy.”

“Well, that’s no good.”

“I should lie down again,” Klaus says. “Probably. Right?”

“Can you do teeth?”

Klaus grumbles about it, but he lets Dave help him up to stand in front of the sink. He goes white as a sheet, but he manages it, and leans against Dave’s chest while he brushes. He rinses, flushes, splashes water on his face.

“C’mon,” Dave says, “you need a hand?”

“I can walk,” Klaus says, but he meets Dave's eyes in the mirror, a tiny smile on his face.

Dave scoops him up, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees, and Klaus laughs in spite of everything, loops his elbows around Dave’s neck. Dave carries him back to their bed, deposits him as gently as he can in their mussed-up sheets. He’s radiant there in the sunlight, the quilt spread out underneath his body, which is warm and healthy, so different from the other times Dave had to help him back from the bathroom, what feels like a lifetime ago.

Klaus holds out his arms, so Dave follows him down, snuggles up against him. He doesn't have the acrid scent of illness or anxiety. If anything, he smells like he's content. It’s a good smell, and Dave’s head is still a little rustled from coming ten minutes ago, and he wants - he  _ wants. _

They end up spooned together on top of the covers, Dave's nose tucked into Klaus's throat from behind, their hands clasped together at Klaus's chest. Dave could check the clock on their bedside table if he wanted to, but he doesn't.

"Does your back still hurt?" he asks, once Klaus's breathing has evened out some.

Klaus hums. "Kind of."

Dave presses his forehead to the back of Klaus's neck. Pauses, shifts an inch, presses again. "You're really warm, sweetheart."

"M'fine."

Klaus shuffles his body closer into Dave's chest, which puts his ass squarely in Dave's lap. And Dave is maybe a little more - a little more  _ engaged _ than he normally would be after seeing his boyfriend get sick and miserable on the bathroom floor. It's been a confusing half hour for his libido.

"Hey there," Klaus says, and he rocks his hips back, pointed, deliberate.

Dave puts a hand on Klaus's waist to hold him still for a second. He props up on his other elbow. Klaus's flush is back, spreading from his cheeks all down his chest.

"You okay?" Dave asks him.

Klaus blinks up at him. "Yeah, I'm, um." He opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"It's just," Dave says, carefully, "you were feeling sick a minute ago. We can wait."

Klaus is properly frowning now. "I don't want to wait," he says, but it's not a complaint so much as an observation.

"Klaus," Dave says.

Klaus sits up again. Looks down at his own belly, at his dick half-hard in his lap. At the slick on the insides of his thighs.

"This is weird," Klaus says. "Am I right? Is this weird?"

"It seems weird," Dave says.

"I'm not freaking out," Klaus says.

"I know you're not."

"Nothing to freak out about."

"Do you think," Dave starts, but Klaus holds up his  _ hello _ hand to stop him.

"I think I'm gonna call my brother," Klaus says.

"Which one?" Dave asks, because he's pretty sure they're on the same page, but-

"The omega one," Klaus says.

Same page, then. "Yeah," Dave says. "Probably a good idea."

℘

Klaus folds himself up on the carpet next to the phone and dials Diego's number while Dave goes to get ice for Klaus's back. He takes his time in the kitchen. Checks all their packages of frozen peas to see which one feels the coldest. Gets a glass of water for them to share, fills the electric kettle for tea later.

"Why the fuck," Diego is saying when Dave makes it back to the living room, "are you asking me about my neck?"

Dave sits down next to Klaus on the floor, the phone on its side at their feet, switched to speaker mode. "Hi, Diego," he says, setting the water down between them, handing Klaus the peas.

"Hey, Dave," Diego says. "How you been?"

"Pretty good. You?"

"Not bad. Why the fuck is my brother asking me about my neck?"

"I'm being serious," Klaus says, and he sounds so gloomy that Dave scoots over to press up against his side.

Diego sighs, tinny on the other end of the line. "Yeah, it gets sensitive during a heat."

"But yours is sensitive all the time, right? Like, that's normal."

"I mean, I'm not gushing over turtlenecks, or whatever."

"It'd justify your wardrobe if you were."

"Fuck off. No, it's - it's situational."

"Did it, um." Klaus looks down at the peas in his hands. "Did it start after you left?"

Diego goes quiet. Then says, "Yeah, after I left."

Klaus shuffles himself around until he can lodge the peas between the small of his back and Dave's hip. He hums when they're in place, tips his head onto Dave's shoulder. "I think my body's shutting down."

"That's not funny," Diego says.

"Who's laughing?"

"Klaus," Dave says into Klaus's ear, and Klaus reaches behind himself to hold one of Dave's hands.

"My neck is all spicy," Klaus says. "My whole torso is cramping. My intestines are trying to escape through my face."

"Okay," Diego says, "those last two things sound like pre-heat."

"Yeah, it also sounds like I got horny with the flu."

"Does it feel like the flu?" Diego asks him. "Or does it feel like a heat?"

"How would I know?"

"How would you  _ not _ know?"

Klaus waves the hand Dave isn't holding at himself. "You can't see me," he says to the phone on the ground, "but I'm waving my hand at myself."

"Yeah, okay," Diego says. "But it's - it's pretty hard to miss, dude."

"Well," Klaus says, "I've got a busted radar. Nothing but static." 

"You should go to a doctor," Diego says.

"Ugh."

"Seriously. You're gonna hurt yourself."

"It might not even be a heat," Klaus says. "Maybe I'm dying. Maybe a working neck is my body's last hurrah."

"You're not dying," Dave says. "And it's not - your neck has never not worked."

"Baby," Klaus says, "I was there, it is  _ working. _ "

"I’m hanging up," Diego says from the floor.

"Your brother's right," Dave says, and he squeezes Klaus's hand in his to lessen the impact of that. "It couldn't hurt to check things out."

"What're they gonna tell me that I don't already know?"

"Whether or not you're going into heat," Diego says. "Which kinda seems like the question of the hour, so."

Klaus sighs, but he doesn't argue.

"We can see if there's a walk-in nearby," Dave says. "If you're feeling up to it."

"Let us know when you're back, we'll bring you guys some food."

"Thanks, Deedee," Klaus says.

Diego doesn't complain about the nickname. Just says, "Careful, okay?"

"I know," Klaus says.

"It's good you called."

"Yeah, okay."

"See you later," Diego says, and hangs up.

Dave lets Klaus be quiet over that for a little while. Holds his hand, keeps the bag of peas in place with his hip even when it starts to sting cold through the fabric of his shirt.

Eventually, Klaus says, "I might explode if I stand up."

"That's okay."

"I don't wanna get sick all over the car."

Dave tucks a kiss behind Klaus's ear. "I can find you a bucket."

"You really think it's that serious?"

"I can't really make that call, sweetheart."

Klaus turns to look at Dave, and the peas fall out from between them, a muted crunch when they land. "I've felt worse than this," he says. "Way worse."

Dave reaches up with his free hand to brush Klaus's curls out of his forehead. Runs his fingers along Klaus's jaw, while he's in the area. "I don't know what to do," he says. "If this is - if your body is going through something difficult, I want to help, and I don't know how."

"I don't know either," Klaus says. "How fucked up is that?"

"It's not fucked up."

"I mean, it's my plumbing, you'd think I'd know how to, like. Grease it."

"I'm not sure you're supposed to grease plumbing."

"See?" Klaus flaps the hand not holding Dave's through the air. "Useless."

"You're not useless," Dave says. "You're body's telling you something new, and an interpreter might help. That's all."

"My body isn't supposed to do new things anymore."

"I mean, I used to drink milk," Dave says. "Bodies change."

"I'm  _ thirty-five, _ " Klaus says. "What  _ is _ this."

"I think it's a heat."

"Yeah, I know."

"Which seems," Dave says, "um."

"Ominous? Portentous?"

"I was gonna say possibly dangerous for you, but sure."

Klaus lists to the side until he falls over, curled up on the floor, knees tight to his chest. "I'm gonna puke out my spine."

"Want me to find a clinic?"

"I was done with clinics," Klaus says.

Dave gets up to track down the phone book.


	2. Chapter 2

Clinics are wonderful. A beautiful, beautiful genre of places. The geometric carpets they all have, the kids' toys on the waiting room tables, the pleasant middle-aged secretaries. Sliding scale fees for crisis counseling. Weekly queer veterans' support groups. There's no one in the world more soothing than a nonprofit employee with relevant knowledge and a long history of helping people voice the kinds of things they're trained to keep quiet.

Klaus isn't as enthusiastic about clinics as Dave, which is fair. Dave's experiences with clinics have always left him feeling lighter, more peaceful, better equipped to be alive. Klaus's experiences with clinics match up pretty much one to one with times he was too ill to stand on his own.

Add another one of those to the list, apparently.

Dave helps Klaus prop himself up against the front desk, and stays close while Klaus grumbles through the intake questions. There aren't many other people in the lobby, and they're all minding their own business, worried about their own problems. Nobody's looking at Dave and Klaus, at Dave's hand resting gentle in the dip of Klaus's back. Nobody ever is, in this century. At least not when Dave checks.

Klaus gets a clipboard with forms, and his displeasure vibrates through him, but he smiles at the secretary anyway. He shifts his weight from the desk to Dave again, and they head to the waiting area, sit in the semi-comfortable chairs. Klaus fills out the paperwork as quickly as he can, and then he takes Dave's hand in his, lifts it up to his face and pushes his nose into Dave's wrist. Breathes in, shuts his eyes.

"You're doing good," Dave says.

Klaus sighs, ticklish across Dave's skin. "You smell nice."

"I try."

Klaus kisses the heel of Dave's hand and puts it back down between them again, still clasped in his. Their palms are already a little damp where they're pressed together. Klaus always runs hot, but this - he’s too warm.

They stay there holding sweaty hands until Klaus is practically trembling out of his seat onto the floor, and then a nurse sticks her head through a door and calls them back.

The exam room they end up in has one padded bench in the middle, a counter with a sink for the doctor, and a chair in the corner that Dave could go sit in if he wasn't busy standing close to Klaus instead. The walls are mostly bare, which is good. Twee educational posters get Klaus's guard up. Dave made enough trips carrying Klaus's things out of his childhood room through the decorated halls of the Academy to understand why.

Klaus climbs up on the bench and gets his temperature taken, his pupils checked, his pulse measured. The nurse doesn't ask him why he's there, which could be because he wrote it on the intake forms, but is actually probably because they've been in the room for two minutes and the whole place already smells like him. She spends every moment of physical contact making the kind of soothing monotonous small talk that even Dave can recognize immediately for what it is, and Klaus must really be feeling like shit, because he lets it work on him.

She finishes up her exam - heart rate reasonable, eyes dilated, temperature high but not alarmingly so - and ducks out to grab the doctor. Dave had drifted away to give the nurse room to work, but he steps back in next to Klaus again. Klaus looks up at him and smiles, but it’s a thin veneer of a thing.

"D'you want me to," Dave says, and he waves his hand at the closed door. "I can give you some privacy."

"I'll let you know," Klaus says. He tilts his chin, and Dave leans down and kisses him, just a peck. "Thanks for coming."

"Of course."

Klaus looks down at his feet. "It's - you know. Really. I'm glad you're here."

"Nowhere else I wanna be."

"Even if I get sick on this very nice floor?"

"I don't think that's even real wood."

"Ooh, brutal assessment." Klaus leans back into Dave, nudges a shoulder between his ribs.

Just for a moment, while they’re alone, Dave lets himself be a little bit  _ typical _ about everything. He wraps his arms around Klaus’s shoulders, pulls him in close, sticks his nose in his hair. Klaus isn’t actually a small person, he’s barely an inch shorter than Dave in their socks, but he’s lean, and Dave can fold him up like handsome pastry filling.

“You’re so cute,” Klaus says, his voice muffled into Dave’s bicep.

Dave squeezes him. Klaus hums and kisses his arm through the fabric of his sweater.

“I’m gonna reek,” Klaus says, but he doesn’t sound mad about it, so Dave hangs on for a while. Hugs the tension out of Klaus’s body until he’s limp against him.

A quick knock on the door, and Dave lets Klaus go, fixes his shirt, wills the flush out of his cheeks. Klaus lets himself stay mussed. He never bothers un-mussing himself, which is why Dave should know better than to muss him up in public in the first place. Not that that’s ever stopped him. Sort of the opposite, actually.

A woman's voice, faint on the other side, says, "Mr. Katz?"

Klaus glances at Dave, sits up straight. "That's me," he says, loud enough to be heard.

Dave … makes a tiny mental dent in turning all his feelings about that into a response beyond staring at Klaus's smile, and then the door opens and Klaus holds up his  _ hello _ hand as the doctor steps through into the room.

The doctor introduces herself, which goes in one ear and out the other for Dave, focused as he is on Klaus, the tense lines of anxiety jutting back through him as she speaks. It might come off as patronizing if he touched Klaus. Controlling, even. Doctors in clinics are wonderful, they're trained to watch like hawks for that kind of thing, Dave can't-

Klaus leans to the side until his shoulder is resting against Dave's belly again, and Dave can see the moment his body relaxes at the contact. He can  _ smell _ it.

"Your symptoms definitely line up with preheat," the doctor is telling Klaus, "so I’m glad you came in. We can try to figure out a plan for - will it be the two of you?”

“That’s the idea,” Klaus says. “Unless something very extreme happens in the next, like, what, twelve hours?”

“I don’t have anything scheduled,” Dave says, and that makes Klaus laugh, which is good.

The doctor gets her clipboard with Klaus’s paperwork on it, which makes Klaus go the tiniest bit stiff for reasons Dave doesn’t specifically understand but can more or less extrapolate. He puts his hand on Klaus’s back again.

"Do you have a list of the suppressants and blockers you've been on?"

Klaus wrinkles his nose. "Um. We figured this out a few years ago, it was the - the dioxi one."

“Dioxiphenostrade?”

"Yeah, that's the bastard. Gesundheit."

"What age did you start?"

"God, I don't remember. Seven, maybe? Eight?"

The doctor, bless her, barely even pauses before she writes that down. "How long did you keep up that regimen?"

"Uh, for a while. Into my 20s, I think, but nothing happened when I went off them, so I figured maybe, taking them so early, they'd - they'd done their job, you know? So why bother."

"You didn't experience a heat when you stopped taking suppressants?" Klaus shakes his head, and the doctor asks, "Were you taking any other medications? Anything that might have affected your body's levels?"

Klaus whistles. "You could say that."

"Fair enough," the doctor says, and she writes that down, too, asks, "Are you still using regularly?"

Hearing that question posed so matter of factly, without judgment, dregs up almost as much emotion in Dave as it does to hear Klaus answer, "Nope," a little pop on the  _ p. _

"Can I ask how long it's been?"

"Nine months, and then another seven months before that."

"That's a long time," the doctor says. "It's not surprising that your body's cycles are starting to recover. You haven't been on any other suppressants?"

"I guess there was a year of - what'd they give us overseas, babe?"

"Phenastrozole," Dave says.

"Yeah, god, fuck that stuff."

The doctor glances up. "That's a beta suppressant, isn't it? I have to double-check," she adds, "because I haven’t heard that class of drug prescribed since before I started med school."

"It's only for betas? That explains some shit."

"There are a lot of reasons you shouldn't have had that administered to you."

"S'what they had on hand," Klaus says, a flippant little shrug, very much at odds with all the complaining he'd done to Dave back in country about what the blockers were doing to his senses, how he couldn't pick up Dave's scent through the film of gunk between his nose and the rest of the world. Even after they came to Klaus's century, after Klaus went off  _ everything, _ it had taken him months to so much as smell a cup of coffee. The first time he'd been able to properly scent Dave they'd laid on their couch for hours, Klaus curled up against Dave's chest, face mashed into his neck while they rocked their hips together, unhurried and sweet, more intimate than Dave had ever imagined such a simple thing could be-

"David," Klaus says, and he's grinning when Dave looks down at him. "A question has been posed."

"Oh." Dave looks up at the doctor. "I, um. Sorry."

"All good," she says. "I was asking if this was your first time seeing a partner through their heat."

"Probably got your answer right there, huh?"

"You'd be surprised. I've seen couples thirty years in fare far worse than you are right now."

"It is, though," Dave says. "My first time."

"It's good that you're here together," the doctor says, sliding her pen back into the clipboard. “It helps to have everybody in the loop for a complicated cycle.”

“Ooh.” Klaus crosses his legs on the exam bench. “Complicated.”

"You’ve got an interesting week ahead of you, I’m afraid," she says, turning back to Klaus, "Your body isn't used to the strain of a heat. A lot of systems are having to come online. I'm sure it's been painful, at times."

"Dazzlingly so," Klaus says, his most stalwart smirk on his face.

"This may not end up being a full heat," the doctor tells him. "Think of it like your body revving its engine - it might take the first time, but it also might need a few tries."

"Or it might explode."

The doctor smiles the kind calm smile of someone who has seen a lot of people have catastrophes. "Nothing that exciting. At most, your body will test things out and decide all the havoc is too high a risk."

"So, what, I get all the shitty parts and none of the fun, and then it's over?"

"It's a possibility," she says. "Not any more or less likely than this being the beginning of a regular heat cycle. It’s very difficult to predict how someone's body will rebound from a nonstandard suppressant regimen.”

“That’s the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone call me chemical soup.”

“Everybody’s chemical soup,” the doctor says. “Yours just has a longer ingredient list than some people."

“A complicated recipe,” Klaus agrees, and then he peeks at Dave. “But very tasty.”

“So,” Dave says, because otherwise he’s going to either hide his face in his hands forever or giggle, or possibly both, “what’s gonna make this easier to, um.”

“Bring to a boil?”

Dave does end up laughing at that, which makes Klaus grin at him. "Yeah. Or turn down to a simmer."

“A few things,” the doctor says, and she sets her clipboard down, leans against the counter with her hip. "You two won't need birth control, so that's one less concern for you. Normally, I would offer a prescription for the pain and nausea, but I don't want to do that if you think it would be a net negative."

Klaus shakes his head.

"In that case, I'd recommend baths. Hot for muscle cramps, cool if you start running a higher fever. If you're comfortable ducking your head underwater, you can do that, too. The dive reflex targets the same systems in your body that control your heat responses. It can help slow things down."

“Am I gonna keep puking?” Klaus asks. “Because that’s getting old real fast.”

“The nausea usually passes within a day or two,” she says. “In the meantime, try to stay hydrated if you can keep it down. You might find your appetite increasing closer to your actual heat, so lean into that, if it happens.”

Klaus sags into Dave’s chest. “People do this shit four times a year?”

“It’ll get more natural the more you do it,” the doctor says. "And if nothing else, the most helpful thing is always going to be to listen to your body and give it what it asks for. Even if what you're experiencing isn't a full heat, intimacy is going to scratch the itch you're feeling and make it easier."

“Yeah,” Klaus says, “see, that’s the part that gets advertised. I’m fine with that part.”

"Am I, um," Dave says, and Klaus peers up at him. "Sorry, I interrupted.”

“Floor’s yours, baby,” Klaus says, propping his chin on the bottom of Dave’s ribcage, which is adorable.

“Am I,” Dave says again, “I mean - am I qualified?"

The doctor turns her kind calm catastrophe smile on him, which means Dave probably didn’t sound as composed as he had imagined he would when he was rehearsing that question in his mind. "More than,” she says. “A familiar partner is the best balm in the world for a difficult heat."

"But I don't have," Dave says, and waves his hand vaguely downward. "His body wants that, right?"

"If you have a supplemental knot, that can be pleasurable," she says, which is something Klaus has made Dave very, very aware of since they came to this decade. "But it's not necessary."

“Oh,” Dave says. “I thought - okay. I, um, grew up getting some outdated information.”

“It’s a common misconception,” the doctor says, “but you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Great,” Dave says. “Ah, anyway.”

Klaus rocks his weight against Dave’s belly, a comforting little bump. “Is there  _ anything _ he needs to do differently?” Klaus asks. “Or is it all the same?”

“Just keep in mind that your body is going to be responding to his,” the doctor tells Dave, and Klaus bumps him again. “If you’ve never experienced a cycle before, it can be surprising, but it’s completely natural.”

There aren’t any mirrors in the exam room, so Dave will never have to know how red he is. He nods, tries not to look like he’s twelve years old in health class. Either he succeeds, or the doctor’s professional poker face is flawless.

"Baby," Klaus says, and Dave looks down at him, his sweet flushed face. "A minute with the doc, before we leave?"

"Of course," Dave says, and he goes to pull away, but Klaus squeezes him close, first, a goofy one-armed hug. So he says, "Yeah, as long as you need," with his nose in Klaus's curls.

"Thanks," Klaus says, and he lets Dave go with a little smack on the hip. "Just a mo'."

Dave waits for Klaus in the hall outside, far enough away that he won't risk overhearing anything. There's a nudge at the base of his skull telling him that he's doing something wrong, that he needs to go back and be with Klaus again, which is embarrassing.

The halls have chairs along the edges, probably for this exact purpose. Dave could sit in one of them. He doesn’t.

The doctor and Klaus emerge together, and Klaus is still pink in the cheeks, wobbly on his feet, but he's smiling. It’s nice to see him do that from a distance. Dave’s so accustomed to his face lighting up right in front of him, but Klaus smiles with his whole body, the flail of his arms and the angle of his hips. His happiness takes him over completely. He’s so beautiful.

The doctor shakes Klaus’s hand and walks in the opposite direction from Dave, turns a corner to another part of the building. The moment she’s gone Klaus spins on his heel, marches the few yards between them, and - and scents Dave's neck right there in the hallway. Tucks his face behind his ear and breathes him in, unmistakable. Which is probably not unprecedented in the back rooms of an omega clinic, what with all the people fresh out of emotionally taxing appointments with their partners. Dave glances around anyway. They're alone.

"I know," Klaus says, breath warm on Dave's collarbone. "Sorry. I missed you."

"Yeah, me too."

"Ridiculous." Klaus nudges Dave's jaw with his nose. "Get me out of here."

℘

Klaus has gone pale by the time Dave guides him back into their apartment, all his movements stiff and forced, so Dave runs him a bath - hot, for his muscles. None of Klaus's usual oils and bubble soaps. Selfish, maybe, but Dave wants to be able to smell him.  _ Just _ him.

"You too," Klaus says as he peels his sweaty t-shirt over his head, so Dave strips down and gets in first, legs spread. Klaus settles his back into Dave's chest, hips between his thighs, head resting on his collarbone.

"Better?" Dave asks him, rubbing a palm back and forth across his chest.

Klaus hums. "Almost," he says, and he reaches up, guides Dave's hand down.

So they do that, Klaus's body nestled into Dave's, his soft breaths in Dave's ear. Simple, familiar. The kind of sex that might have become perfunctory by now with anyone other than Klaus, whose pleasure is revelatory, a gift every time he offers it for Dave to share. Dave drains away the mess and refills the tub with them still in it, and Klaus grumbles about the cold until the water is back up to his shoulders, and then he tips his head back, and Dave angles his own jaw so Klaus can scent him.

"I talked to the doctor," Klaus says into Dave's neck.

"You don't have to tell me," Dave says. "None of my business unless you want it to be."

"It can be your business." Klaus nuzzles in, breathes one more time, then pulls away, tucks the crown of his head under Dave's chin. "I didn't, um. Didn't wanna rock the boat if it ended up being nothing, I guess."

"Boat's good to be rocked, sweetheart."

"Thanks, captain." Klaus squeezes Dave's thigh. "I mostly asked her, like - you know, normal heats have all the stuff you have to think about, but I didn't know if this one would. And that’s only if I actually do go into heat. If it ends up being a fakeout or a one-off, whatever, but, um. I'm rambling."

"This is pretty tame, as far as rambles go."

"Oh, I'm just getting started."

Dave cuddles Klaus closer. "Normal heats have things you have to think about."

"Yeah. And there's no guarantee this is gonna happen again," Klaus says, hands gesturing under the water, rippling the surface, the seam where it meets his chest, "and I wasn't sure I wanted to bring it up because it might not even happen  _ now, _ and I don't want to make a big deal out of something that probably isn't going to matter, but I asked the doctor about biting, and she said that if this is a full heat, we might - my body might end up being able to do it, so."

Dave tries to look at Klaus's face without letting go of him, which doesn't quite work. He can see the set of Klaus's jaw in profile, the tense muscles in his neck. "Are you - Klaus, sweetheart, I would never. I wouldn't do that to you."

"What?" Klaus turns, peers at Dave out of the corner of his eye. "Slow down. Do what to me?"

"I thought - did it make you uncomfortable, before? We don't ever have to do that again."

Klaus sits forward enough to turn and look at Dave properly. He stares for a moment, and then he says, in the deliberate tone of voice he picked up during his most recent and fulfilling stint in rehab, "What do you think I'm talking about?"

"Um." Dave glances down at Klaus's hands under the water, one in his own lap, the other cupped around Dave's thigh. "I mean, neither of us have done this before, it's probably not unreasonable for you to worry that I might lose control."

"Lose-" Klaus cuts himself off, eyes going wide, says, "Hey, no, you asked before you  _ nibbled, _ baby."

"But that was preheat, right? It's - it's new territory, and I don't know-"

"Me smelling nice isn't gonna turn you into a different person." Klaus reaches up with a splash, cups Dave's face in his wet palms. "Is that where your head's at?"

"Not really?" Dave swallows. "Only a little bit."

"You're gonna be so good to me," Klaus says, like it's a foregone conclusion. "Hey, eyes up."

Dave hadn't realized his eyes had gone down. He looks at Klaus again, the determined line of his mouth.

"I brought it up so, um. You know." Klaus smooths his thumbs over Dave's cheeks. “So we could talk about it. The possibility.”

Dave says, "Oh."

"Yeah."

"I freaked out, huh?"

"Barely." Klaus leans in and kisses the very tip of Dave's nose. "You could be freaking out way worse, considering."

"Considering?"

"We're kind of down to the wire for this conversation. So, um, sorry."

"It's not exactly under your control."

"Well, we could have talked before," Klaus says, "but I didn't - I didn't ever really think about it. Like, I did, but not in a  _ this could happen _ way. And it felt sort of mean to like, dangle something in front of you that I could never do, yeah? Which is why I wanted to ask the doctor without you first. And then ask you, after that."

"Good thinking," Dave says.

"It still feels mean," Klaus says, "but I can't really wait to ask you until I know for sure it's possible, because then it's just like,  _ happening. _ And I know you're supposed to take your time and talk it through for a while, or whatever, except this could be my only heat ever, for all we know. So like, the train might be leaving the station on this one. If it even shows up at all."

Dave says, "Sure."

"And the doctor said that without regular heats it can be harder to hold a bond, like it would take some extra work, but we could probably do it. It would take extra work for me without an alpha, anyway, so what's a little more, right?"

"And you want that," Dave says. "With me."

Klaus shuts his mouth, stares at him.

"I guess - maybe I should have figured that out before right now."

"Jesus,” Klaus says. “Yes, I want that with you."

Dave feels himself smiling. He can't help it. "Yeah?"

"I want it so bad. I can't think about it too hard, I go cross-eyed. Do - do you?"

"Klaus, I came to a different century with you."

"Yeah," Klaus says, and he's gone tense, which is terrible, "but I mean, if you're changing your mind, or - I know this isn't what you thought you were signing up for. My brother can probably take you back if you need-"

Dave kisses him, and he relaxes, just a little. Keeps kissing him, and he relaxes even more.

"I love you," Dave says, once they finally break apart, Klaus melting in his arms. "I'm with you. Whatever that ends up looking like."

"I thought so," Klaus says, his voice loose around the edges. "Like, I was gonna be pretty surprised, there."

"I'm very predictable."

"Nah," Klaus says. He turns to settle back against Dave, spooned into his chest. "You're a new delight every day."

"Oh, yeah, that's me."

"I mean it," Klaus says, and it's too matter of fact to be anything other than the truth.

Dave tucks his chin over Klaus’s shoulder, which puts his nose right in the soft skin behind his jaw, and it’s easy to press close, inhale. Klaus tilts his head to make room, and Dave settles down, breathes him in. His lingering pleasure, the warm clean scent of his happiness.

“I love you,” Dave says again, and it always used to strike him as disingenuous, to tell someone you loved them and then scent them, like putting a coin in a slot machine. But that was before Klaus, before he could draw Klaus’s emotions out of him and into his own body, before he could feel his own feelings returned. Loving into a mirror.

It’s the strongest connection Dave’s ever had with another human being. The most vulnerable, intimate understanding. He can’t imagine it being deeper, can’t even  _ fathom- _

"Extra work," Dave says, trailing his fingers over Klaus's belly. "What's that mean?"

"Physical stuff. Cuddling, I guess. Scenting. Fucking, obviously, a lot of that."

"Wow, what a hardship."

"It's - it's easy, for some people," Klaus says. "You slap a bite on them and it's like the floodgates open. I've got a shitty little valve you've gotta pull on with a rope. All rusty and sad."

"We'll get some WD-40 in there."

"You're so butch."

"I was gonna cuddle you forever anyway,” Dave says. “This gives me an excuse."

“It still, um.” Klaus swallows, Dave can feel his throat move against his cheek. “It still might not end up happening, though, so, you know. Sorry in advance.”

“I want it,” Dave says, because now that it’s there, hanging in the air between them, he should be honest. “But I want you, with or without it. Okay?”

“I was trying not to get your hopes up,” Klaus says.

“I’ve got totally realistic hopes.”

Klaus tilts his head to rest against Dave’s. Gets wet curls in Dave’s face. “Good, but, like. I may have gotten mine up instead.”

Dave wraps one arm around Klaus’s waist, the other around his chest. Pulls him in, holds him as close as he can get him. “If we can do it,” he says, “we will. I’m in. I’m getting on the train.”

“The - oh, the heat train.”

“I was trying to use your metaphor.”

“That was like right in the middle of the ramble, I was just saying words.”

Dave draws back far enough to kiss Klaus’s cheek. “I could talk about soup, instead.”

“You’re such a nerd.”

“Are you a minestrone, or more of a bisque?”

“What’s the sexiest soup? That’s the soup I am.”

“Ooh, you’re a consommé.”

Klaus giggles, tilts his head back into a proper kiss. He leaves it there even after they break apart, resting on Dave’s shoulder.

“You have to tell your boss that you’re gonna spend a week fucking me,” Klaus says.

“Is it too late to cash in that time trip?”

“Yep.” Klaus is lax and cozy in Dave’s arms, his eyes sliding half shut. “Gotta lie in the bed you made and, uh, make an awkward phone call from it.”

“Long as you join me afterwards.”

“Obviously,” Klaus says, and Dave kisses him again, and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> names two fictional medications and no side characters


End file.
